


Our Choices Seal Our Fate

by alyyks



Series: Consign Me Not To Darkness [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Slice of Life, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22723642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: Snapshots of the shared lives of Maul, Breha, Bail, and Leia.
Relationships: Darth Maul/Bail Organa/Breha Organa
Series: Consign Me Not To Darkness [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634038
Comments: 15
Kudos: 35





	1. Alderaan: Breha, Maul, Leia

**Author's Note:**

> I can not guarantee this will get the 30k they deserve, but, well. I wasn't planning on shipping it originally :D 
> 
> Much thanks to SLWalker for the ship, and antonomasia09 for the endless enthusiasm and enabling

Had Breha not had to look down now and then, she might have forgotten that Maul was even there. His head was pressed against her thigh with only a pillow as thin barrier against the bruises his horns could leave. But there he was curled on his side on their couch, back pressed to its back, eyes closed and so incredibly still and quiet under the hand she had on his shoulder that she had to look in quick glances from the bottom of her datapad that he really was here.

Breha breathed. The duties of a Queen never stopped, even for the ones she held dearest to her heart. This she could give, for a moment: respite, safety, for her dear friend, but only for a moment. She would have to get up and meet with her ministers soon, she would have put on the face of Queen Breha Organa, to pretend that her heart was not twisting in worry for her loves. 

Bail had been gone to the Imperial Senate—the joke that it was, and that thought she kept under lock and key because you never knew which ears were listening—for several months now, the contacts few and far between, no holocall or comlink secure enough for more than the barest hellos. She missed him. Maul missed him. Their daughter missed him. 

Breha let the hand that was holding her datapad to dangle over the arm of the couch. Her other hand traced the edges of Maul’s face markings, the skin warm and smooth under her fingers following the familiar and loved edges, the stark lines she knew continued until the metal caps marking the boundary between flesh and bone and metal. 

Maul didn’t stir. Didn’t move. He had been doing so well—better each day he was on Alderaan, until even he sometimes forgot that his mind, that _he_ , had gone through so much. But his mind never truly forgot, his body never really could. The depressive episodes were a known variable, one they had learned to live with. 

All she could do in those times was give him what safety, love and shelter she could. 

The door to the private apartments opened, and Leia came bouncing in, the door closing loudly behind her. 

“Mother,” she called, “I followed Papa, but he’s not—“ and then their daughter walked around the couch, her steps suddenly quieter.

“Hello my darling,” Breha said. Leia leaned to give her a kiss, then she turned and hesitated over Maul. 

“Go ahead,” Breha said. 

Leia kissed Maul just above his cheekbone, stepped back. She looked at Breha with brown eyes too serious for her age. Leia was eight, sharp, observant—their daughter was many thing, and among them she was not unaware that outside this room, the galaxy was dangerous, what she knew was dangerous but she was still a child. They had never hidden Maul’s bad days to her, but she had never understood them. 

“Is he going to be all right?” 

Breha returned her hand to Maul’s shoulder, her thumb rubbing the warm skin of his neck above his collar. 

“He will be okay.”

“Is he sick? Because he’s hiding, but he feels sick.” And here was one more thing that made Leia very well aware of what was safe and wasn’t beyond those doors, the bond in the Force that she and Maul shared, all their abilities and knowledge that she and Bail could only see the surface of. 

“Sometimes it’s your brain and mind that get sick.”

“That’s because of how he met Father, isn’t it?” 

Breha hummed in answer. The story of how Bail and Maul had met, embellished through the years, had been a bedtime favorite. Recently however, Leia had started asking more questions about it, had asked to know the real story. “In part,” Breha added. 

Leia frowned at the couch, then seemed to take a decision. She sat and then laid against Maul, taking all the space that was left. Maul, once more, did not react. Leia huffed, and then tucked her head under Maul’s chin as best as she could. 

“I’ll stay with him when you need to go,” she told her mother. 

Breha moved her hand from Maul’s shoulder to Leia’s braids, thumb brushing her daughter's cheek. 

Maul moved, bringing his arm around Leia so she would not fall off the couch. 

Those were hard days, dark days. But there was love, and hope—and the promise of a tomorrow. 


	2. Alderaan: Bail, Maul

  
“Care to join me?” Bail asked, holding up the bottle of wine he was opening. A rather nice red from his properties, it’d need some breathing before drinking, just long enough to wait for Breha to finish her last meetings and join them.

Maul looked up from his book, one that had all the marks of being a treaty on Alderaanian politics. Why the man was subjecting himself to it, Bail had no idea — but then Maul, when not teaching Leia to hide herself or making appearances at meals with them, seemed to be determined to make his way through all the materials of the Palace’s Library, often tucked into the furthest stacks and out of sight. 

Bail preferred when, like now, Maul was in their quarters to read. 

Maul shook his head. “I never developed the taste for it.” 

Bail inclined his head, showing he had heard him. Maul returned to his book. 

Bail caught himself daydreaming, watching Maul on Breha’s preferred sofa, clad in black but his feet bare. That his feet were metal and plastoid did not detract from the air of quietness and intimacy the scene held. It was relaxing, and in a way that Bail kept to himself for now, it was very satisfying to know that Maul was comfortable enough in their private rooms to show some measure of vulnerability. 

“You do not usually open a bottle after a day in your offices,” Maul said, head lowered to his book.

Bail sighed. It had been a long, frustrating day, of being given the run around and playing holocall catch up. He had little illusions of his actual power to change anything in the Imperial Senate, be it laws or being heard at all, but if he could do something, anything, he would do it. And sometimes, that something was being witness to the depth of bureaucracy keeping everything a little more frozen in place everyday. “There are days when I think spending the entire time fishing outside would achieve the same amount of nothing as I do sitting in that office and fighting for every scrap. But at least I’d have fish out of it.” 

Maul’s irises slide to the corner of his eyes, then back to his book. 

“How was your day?” Bail asked.

“I am not accustomed to being so…idle and free.”

Bail choose to answer only one part of that statement. He was, subtly, pushing for Maul to talk to someone who could help in part, at least with the four years and the slaver ship. Too many of Alderaan’s new citizens and refugees had seen similar hardships, and their physicians had sadly had much training. “Don’t let Breha hear you, she’d find you a place in her cabinet in a heartbeat.”

“… Why would she want to do that? Besides,” Maul held up his book which was indeed a treaty on Alderaanian politics that Bail had read decades back and which devoted several chapters to who should be part of the government or have the ear of the Elder Houses and who should not, “I’m not alderaanian.”

“Do you want to be?”

Maul stared up at him, dumbfounded. 

“I’m serious,” Bail said. “I told you, when we came here, that whatever you decide, I’d help. Be it stay here, go somewhere, anywhere, work for Breha, spend the rest of your days reading everything that was written since the dawn of writing in the galaxy.”

“I don’t want to put you, or Breha, or _Leia_ —“ Maul’s voice caught on her name, and he continued after a heartbeat. “I can’t put a target on you. I can’t.” 

Bail held up his hands, quiet, non-threatening. “Just think about it. We get applications every day. One more would not raise any eyebrows.”

Maul’s hands were cramped on the book, black and red straining on the dark grey binding. He was not looking at Bail anymore, but at the floor, the edge of the carpets, his jaw clenched. 

Bail approached, slowly, until he could sit on the same sofa as Maul. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

Maul exhaled, eyes falling shut. “You want,” he started. He took a deeper breath. “You want to give me a life, even though it could mean your end and you will never stop offering, won’t you?” 

“No,” Bail said, softly, “no, I’m afraid I won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fishing and the wine directly inspired by [SLWalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker) excellent Alderaan fics <3


End file.
